Within a little over a week it is time. I will be on my (race) bike and cycling for 2 weeks, over 2000 kilometer, to raise money for an organization that helps out kids with muscle diseases and funds research in order to be able to prevent and treat muscle diseases. It is strange and weird that I have not posted about that on this blog yet. And now it is so close, all I can share is the feelings on shuffle in my mind.

As I am working hard to get all the preparations done, I am focusing on this ride more than I have done so far. I am thinking about the kids constantly, thinking about more ways to make their life more awesome. I am thinking about the hazards of the ride that I will encounter. I am looking forward to the information and to all the conversations with the experts and the cycling enthusiasts. In short, there is going so much through my head that it is hard to focus on anything else. All I think is cycling, all I see is cycling, all I hear is cycling and all I want to do is cycling. Trying out the gear, trying out the new outfits and the cool little gadgets that will keep me on the road.

I know I will end up at the side of the road, crying my hydration out, feeling alone and desperate, at some point. I know I will feel intense joy and happiness when I overview the beautiful scenery. I know I will feel grateful for every rider out there who joins me for a while. I will feel (and I already feel) grateful for every single euro donated, for every single bit of help that is offered to me.

So far this entire experience has been amazing already. The many times my status was shared so many times I could not possibly track all the replies of people who wanted to help me. The many times that people wish me good luck, people who I have never met before who come up to me and shake my hand. It is plain and simple overwhelming.

Here I am. four and a half more prep days to go. 5 rest days to go. Sitting on the couch, wishing I could express all the feelings of happiness and gratitude and excitement and nerves that rush through my body, knowing that all I can do is just follow the plan. That is all I need to do, just follow the plan. The plan that I did not fully write down. I just used some words and lines and quickly drawn graphs about training intensity and type of training. I just scribbled some sentences in my notebook to guide myself through the last preparations. I did make Excel files with the routes, the addresses where I will stay and a packing list and yes, I did contact professionals to help me with this weird and exciting adventure. And now it is almost time. It is almost time and all I want to do is start already. I just want to get on that bike and start riding. I am ready. My body is not, but my mind is. My body needs some more rest. My health needs those last preparations, but a small part of me can’t wait to be on that bike…

But I will wait. I will take my time and I will do this the right way.
I will take my time so I can ride this ride, for Bente, Finn and Liv. For three amazing children who will be in my heart forever.
I will take my time and silently go over all the people who have showed their support, one way or another. And since I am doing that silently, hereby I want to thank all of you, once again. Thank you!

So, there you have it, my feelings on shuffle, in a blog, on my personal blog…

If you feel you want to support this ride, and thereby the amazing children who live with muscle diseases, just simply go to www.2000kilometer.nl to donate, or contact me to hear what else you can do. And if you want to wish me good luck in person, come to Hoornaar on the first of August. I will ride through this village around 9:30 / 10:00 am. You can check-in for this event right here.

If you have any questions, go for it, ask them. I will be glad to answer them!

Last week I got an invite from Jorden to join the kick-off of the 30 day Paleo challenge at the Crossfit box (yeah, personal invites always work better!). My original plan for the weekend was to go to Texel and learn to fly, but since the wind was going over 45 kilometers an hour, that plan did not hold and there was no reason to skip on this kick-off. But I am not the kind of girl that goes to a kick-off and then just leaves it at that. Of course I am going to join the challenge. And you know what? I challenge you to join me too!

For me paleo is not new. I have been eating paleo and I have stopped eating paleo the last few years. For me the challenge is in getting enough food into my system without overloading on nuts and protein. I like the idea behind the paleo lifestyle. I like the food better than non-paleo food and I learned today that there is actually a paleo supermarket snack that will definitely help me with that last bit of staying out of the hunger-zone.

The challenge at the box is more than just the food. It is about being healthy. Therefore we all got / get a measurement of our body and today we tested our 1RM for the Squat, Overhead Press and Deadlift, as well as our time on the 1kilometer row. Also we are asked to get enough daylight and fresh air and enough sleep. All important aspects of healthy living.

Since I invite you to join me on this challnge, I will share my experiences with you during the upcoming weeks, including all the measurements and training progress and if I find enough time, including some recipes. I won’t post daily updates, because that would bore me out, but I will manage a weekly training and food diary (or at least aim for that…).

Paleo food workshop by Crossfit Bink 36 coach Marjolein Beukers

We had an awesome introduction today, I must say. We got information about how to eat paleo, we had a real food work-shop by coach Marjolein, we did the 1RM tests and we got information about supplements by CrossVitamins. Also we got to taste the awesome nākd. bars (did I mention they are delicious and that I am officially addicted? And that they are awesome and paleo?). For those who wanted it, there was a starters kit available. Though I am no paleo rookie, it is always good to get a challenge diary, paleo guide, paleo magazine, nākd bars and D3 and magnesium supplements and last but not least a cheat sheet to put on the fridge as a reminder.

30 day paleo challenge starters kit & Dino playing a games for cats game.

Tomorrow the challenge starts. Only paleo food for 30 days. Trying to get my sleep and going outside for my breaks to soak in some sunlight. I will have my body measurements upcoming week, but I did do the strength and condition tests. Down here are my results of today (none of these are PRs)

Three days to write about. Three days in which I tried to do little things to better the world. Let’s start with the beginning: Friday. Last week I decided to attend a course to learn more about Kettle bell training and how to coach people through the basic exercises. The fact that I subscribed was a combination of missing going to school, feeling fatigued by work all week and my body screaming for some exercise challenge. It was convenient to be a day off and since the course only started at 11:30 I had a good part of the morning for myself; time to clean the house a bit more and to think of what I would do for these 10 days.

As I was cleaning already, I figured I might as well go through my clothes in my closet to see what I could give away. I always bring my “old” cloths to the Red Cross, so they can re-use them. Mostly I take something from my closet an put it aside. If it stays aside for half a year, I donate it. If I start using the item again, I put it back in my closet. Friday I decided to me a bit more determined. Since there are quite some clothes that I haven’t worn in ages, I figured I’d better just bring them away immediately. This resulted in me walking to the donation point around the corner (yes, that is very convenient indeed!) and throwing away a good set of shirts, skirts and dresses.

This ritual reminded me of how we can re-use items; not only clothes, but also furniture, cars, bikes, and so many other things. My mother always donates her old clothes to me and since we have almost the same size, the clothes she shrinks out of, fit me perfectly. On my turn, I bring all the clothes that I end up not wearing to the Red Cross collection point and make yet another person happy with a single buy.

On Saturday morning I left for my training again and since I had a friend over Friday night, I felt broken. My body did not get enough sleep and my muscles were still recovering from all the kettle bell swings. As usual I cycled the 30 kilometres to the Cross fit box, which took me about half an hour more than usual. Time enough to think of other things I could do to better the world. My mind was quite blank and I did not want to repeat anything I already did since I also aim to inspire others. I needed fresh ideas. The idea of doing something today kept hunting me all through the day and it wasn’t until that evening that an opportunity presented itself. I was at the cinema with a friend, to celebrate his birthday, when I needed a little toilet break. Naturally I walked in, did my things and as I was leaving the room, some girls came walking towards the toilet. All I did was holding the door for them. Not much special, but a little courtesy can bring the world a long way. Like I mentioned before, sometimes the smallest things can matter and for these girls it did. They smiled and thanked me.

Working @ Sportcity Gouda

On to Sunday: Now, at first I thought I did not do anything today. That is the miraculous thing about bettering the world. Some things (like holding a door as well) come so naturally that you hardly notice that you did something. In my first draft of this blog, I wrote that I actually only did two days during the last three days, but then I remembered that I took some time after work at the gym to talk to one of the gym members about becoming a fitness instructor. I took my study books with me and gave her some time to go over them. I had already set up for her to meet one of the teachers on Friday and yesterday I explained some basics of human physiology, myology and anatomy.

For me, sharing information and knowledge, sharing experiences and philosophies / insights on subjects, comes naturally. Therefore I hardly noticed that this as well counts as an act to better the world. We are creatures who can do great things as long as we work together and share what we know and what we can do with others. Working together is one of the most powerful tools we have and by doing so, impossible tasks become possible. In this case the task was far from impossible, but creating the habit of sharing and working together is just as valuable.

So there you have it. My weekend. I wish you all a fantastic start of the week!

When I was younger, say 10 or 11 years old, I would look at the Olympic winter games on television and dream of being one of those gorgeous ice skaters or skiers who were successful, athletic and in general very easy on the eyes. After watching a game, I would fantasize about how it would feel to be at those games, as an athlete, when I was laying awake at night. It must be amazing to live in a world that is all about sports and not about all the sad politics, hatred and violation of human rights, which I knew – maybe a bit too much – about because I was already a volunteer for Amnesty International.

Later I learned about the ‘bread and games’ politics used in Rome to silence the entire population. If you give people their basic needs and make sure they have got something to amuse themselves, they won’t question decisions and acts by political figures and leaders too much, and if they did, well, there was always room for more gladiators to fight. It was a simple diversion for support and approval of political decisions: marketing.

Again a few years later, I realized that the image of the Dutch that I always learned about, us being tolerant and open minded, has mostly been a good marketing act of a small group of the population, a façade, and it was slowly fading as I grew older. More and more I learned about the violation of human rights in my own country, and the hatred amongst people all around the world, hatred against individuals and groups of people, based on their appearance, their race, their sexual orientation..

I saw how populist politics grew and how television more and more became an excuse to numb down, to get hypnotized by – sometimes plain cruel – amusement. I saw a population that cared about bread and games, a population that did not question why, how and how come. Was it that I was growing older, losing my naivety, or was it that the world actually was changing? Was it that thanks to the internet I learned more and more about the world, or was it that we were actually fighting harder for equality and human rights and that change demands resistance and impasses?

You know? With the Olympics coming up, once again the entire world focuses on the problems, issues and cruelties of one country. A country organizing the Olympics is under a magnifying glass and as soon as the games are over, we move on and forget about all the things that made us so angry in the first place (or the things we ignored because we did not want to care). This could be a reason not to stand up, not to speak out and say: “Hey, country, what you are doing there… I don’t really like that.” It could. But in all these cases, I think it is important to do speak out, to do stand up and say what bothers you. The Olympics were never only about the games, it has always been about politics, so why be ignorant about that? Have we really become that numb and scared that we won’t protect morality, equality and our basic human rights any more? Did we really fall for the fairytale of the separation of sports and politics?

I am proud of all the athletes that stood op so far, the athletes that used their voice, however silent or loud, to say: “Hey, country, what you are doing there… I really don’t like that.” Athletes like Emma Green-Tregaro and Anastasia Bucsis give me faith that we can still fight. We won’t be ignorant and use things like “we have to respect the rules and culture of a country” or, as we do in the Netherlands, “it was just a joke”, to be racists or fascists, to promote inequality or to be cruel, against humans and animals.

I am ashamed that the Dutch government did not stand up and speak out in favour of the BGLT community, in favour of equality, in favour of human rights. I am disappointed that the Dutch government hides behind “political reasons” and the “fragile relation with Russia”. If that relationship is really that fragile, maybe it is time to question why that is. Maybe it is time to stand up and say: “Hey, Russia, what you are doing there… I really don’t like that!”